Democrats Now Piling on to Postpone the Individual Mandate!

Cato Institute’s Michael Cannon has all the analysis and gory details for you. Check out Michael’s breaking news flash on the rapid unraveling of the widely hated Obamacare scheme. I view Michael Cannon as America’s #1 authority on the business-destroying disaster packaged as Obamacare.

Unions are a key Democratic constituency, and many unions that once supported Obamacare are now screaming for Democrats to reopen the law. Last week, the Teamsters, the United Food and Commercial Workers, and UNITE-HERE wrote Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) that Obamacare “will destroy the very health and wellbeing of our members along with millions of other hardworking Americans.” Obamacare, they wrote, “will shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits,” but is already creating “nightmare scenarios” in which “[n]umerous employers have begun to cut workers’ hours,” leaving workers with “less pay while also losing our current health benefits.” In April, the United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers, and Allied Workers called for “repeal or complete reform” of ObamaCare.

Every implementation glitch that emerges between now and 2014, every complaint ObamaCare supporters hear from unions and other Democratic constituencies will soften congressional opposition to reopening ObamaCare. If the same one-in-nine share of Senate Democrats buck the president on the individual mandate, there would be more than enough Senate votes — 52 — to delay or repeal the individual mandate through the budget-reconciliation process. The more uncomfortable things become for congressional Democrats, the harder it will be for President Obama to veto these measures.